New DOH hubs to boost access to health care

MANILA, Philippines — To provide Filipinos more access to health services, the Department of Health (DOH) plans to build 28 primary care facilities across the country.

Health Secretary Ted Herbosa said these health hubs, to be called National Ambulatory and Urgent Care Facility, would be spread out in strategic parts of the country to be able to reach out to communities lacking health care establishments.

“The idea here is to decongest our regional hospitals where there are long lines of patients. Many are complaining that these hospitals offer complete health services, but the waiting time is too long because there are many patients,” Herbosa said in a recent forum.

He added, “We will unload these regional hospitals. We will build these health facilities in provinces lacking hospitals, particularly within the compound of state college and universities with medical schools.”

The DOH, he pointed out, envisions these primary care facilities to be complete with health services such as family medicine, OB surgery medicine, orthopedics, endoscopy, MRI or magnetic resonance imaging, CT scan, x-ray and laboratory, as well as day surgery.

Herbosa also noted that the priority goals of DOH consists of primary care that include immunization, nutrition, hypertension, diabetes, maternal and child health; cancer screening; non-communicable diseases prevention, and road safety.

“These are all public health services. It is about time that the DOH modernizes primary care thus the plan to build such health facilities by year 2028,” he said.

Aside from these, the DOH is also pushing for the digitalization of health services to be able to reach far-flung areas.

“We can already subscribe or make possible internet connection in these areas. In that way, telemedicine from regional hospitals is possible,” Herbosa said.

He added the move would enable more people, especially the indigents, to have access to health services under the Universal Health Care Law.